Gauchos end Gauchos’ baseball season

After eliminating Petaluma earlier in the week, El Cerrito ended the Casa Grande baseball season in the second round of the North Coast Section playoffs.|

After eliminating Petaluma’s Trojans, 3-2, in the first round of the North Coast Section Division 2 baseball playoffs, El Cerritos’ Gauchos made it a clean sweep of Petaluma on Saturday afternoon, ending Casa Grande’s own Gaucho NCS dreams, 6-3.

There were multiple factors at play in the Casa fall - line drives hit right at El Cerrito defenders, lack of clutch hits and crucial fielding miscues by the normally glove-sure Casa Gauchos. But the truth was that on an overcast but warm Saturday afternoon, El Cerrito was the better team.

“You have to hand it to them,” said Casa Grande coach Chad Fillinger. “They executed when they needed to.”

Both starting pitchers, Broc Burleson for Casa Grande and Jacob Rossi for El Cerrito, were effective, but not untouchable, although they pretty much controlled things for the first three innings. Burleson gave up hits in each of the first two innings, but five strikeouts over that span and Casa Grande’s seemingly patented infield double play easily kept the visitors away from the plate.

Casa Grande got a couple of singles in the second and boarded a man via a hit by pitch in the third, but it never seriously bothered Rossi.

Burleson suddenly lost the plate in the top of the fourth inning, walking the first two batters of the frame. Those freebees came at a cost. Both walked runners scored after advancing on wild pitches. One came in on a single by Sawyer Whitney and the other on a sacrifice fly by Isaac Woldt.

Casa Grande’s only counting blows were struck in the fourth inning when its Gauchos took a 3-2 lead. The big blast in the inning was struck by Joey Loveless, who lined a shot over the left-field fence with Cameron Downing on base. The catcher boarded himself with one of three singles he had in the game.

Two outs later, Casa Grande added a third run, the go-ahead run at the time, on a solid single to right by Cole Santander, a wild pitch and a bad-hop single by Ibai Guadron.

The Gaucho lead held until the sixth inning when El Cerrito’s Henry Degnan led off with a double blasted to left field. All sorts of junk, including a walk, a wild pitch, and an infield error followed, providing the visiting Gauchos with two runs and a 4-3 lead.

Whatever dreams the home-side Gauchos had of continuing their season were belted out of existence by four hits, including two doubles and three runs in the top of the seventh inning.

The seventh-inning insurance wasn’t needed because Rossi, with a couple of strong late innings of relief from Jamison Patanapanich, kept Casa Grande at bay over the final three frames.

Casa put runners at first and third with only one out in the fifth, but a swift infield double play ended the threat.

Casa Grande made one more threat on the season when Joe Lampe hustled out a double with two outs and A.J. Miller walked, but an infield bouncer ended the game and Casa’s season.

Casa Grande opened the playoff earlier in the week with senior Nik Kamages pitching a wild one-hitter to hurl the Gauchos by Concord’s Minutemen, 3-2.

Kamages was not hittable in his dominating route-going performance against Concord, with only two balls even knocked into the outfield against him. However, at times he was also uncontrollable, walking seven Minutemen and working with men on base in each of the last five innings.

Kamages struck out seven, but he had a lot of help along the way, especially from his infield of Miller at first, Dylan Moore at second, Santander at third and Lampe at shortstop.

Among sundry other contributions, the middle combo of Moore and Lampe turned two double plays, including a twin kill in the seventh inning to end the game.

Casa Grande didn’t do a lot of heavy bat work against Concord pitchers Johnathan Miller and Josh Anders, but the Gauchos did grind out enough quality at bats to get the job done, finishing with six hits.

Moore and Lampe collected two of the three Casa Grande hits during a three-run second inning that provided all the offensive support Kamages was to need - or get.

Moore started the rally with Casa’s first hit of the game and Lampe finished it with an RBI single to right-center. In between, there was a bunt, two walks, an error and two wild pitches, one allowing a run to score.

Casa Grande looked as though it might continue the momentum in the third when Downing and Moore opened the inning with singles, but a couple of ground outs and a looked-at third strike ended Casa hopes.

Meanwhile, Kamages and the Casa defense kept frustration wearing a Concord uniform. A double play wiped out a potential rally in the fourth, a strikeout stranded a runner at second in the fifth; two strikeouts thwarted a runner at second in the sixth; and the final Moore-to-Lampe-to-Miller double play finished it all.

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